Job Board Journalist: The State of Programmatic Ad Buying

A record crowd some 145 people strong gathered for the third annual TAtech Leadership Summit on Programmatic Ad Buying in talent acquisition. Held in the beautiful McNamara Alumni Center of the University of Minnesota, the event covered both artificial intelligence in recruiting and Google for Jobs as well as all facets of programmatic ad buying.

The Founding Sponsor of the series – Appcast – did a survey of the participants, which provided some interesting insights on the state of programmatic ad buying in our industry. A webinar on those findings will be presented in a month or so, but in the interim, here’s a summary of what the crowd told us.

What Are They Doing?
Almost six-in-ten (58.7%) said “Our business is substantially better off because of programmatic ad buying.” Slightly more than three-in-ten (30.2%) said “The jury is still out. We’ve tried it, but it’s too early to know how it will affect our business.” None, on the other hand, indicated that their business had been hurt by the technology, while 7.9% reported that they hadn’t yet tried it.

How Are They Doing?
An astonishing 46% of the publishers expect greater than 50% sales growth in their programmatic offerings over the next 12 months.

Buyers’ Expectations
Just under a third (32%) said they expected at least 50% of their budget to be directed toward cost-per-applicant spending within 12 months.

Buyers’ Challenges
When asked what are the biggest inhibitors to the use of programmatic by their organization, buyers said:
• Not enough publishers support programmatic
• Can’t understand or control the “incestuous” networks offering programmatic
• Getting transparent, accurate ROI evaluation / reporting

Sellers’ Expectations
A fifth of the attendees (exactly 20%) said that programmatic technology, tools, products and services would be their #1 investment in 2017/2018.

Sellers’ Challenges
When asked what are the biggest inhibitors to programmatic growth in their organization, publishers said:
• “we need to know eCPA and we need benchmarks”
• “difficulty mixing traditional and programmatic products”

What Sellers Want
• Conversion data – the only way publishers can optimize performance is if buyers tell them what’s happening
• Real talk – “real CPAs” and data-driven decision-making to minimize the influence of emotion, habit and (conscious or unconscious) bias

All-in-all, it was an eye-opening summary of the state of programmatic ad buying in our industry. And, of course, it’s offered here as …